On being black and visiting museums

by Jendella Benson Deciding that it is never too early to take the task of cultural reproduction seriously (see David Osa Amadasun’s article, “‘Black people don’t go to galleries’ – The reproduction of taste and cultural values”), I took my fourteen month old son to the National Portrait Gallery one brisk November afternoon. The exhibition […]

This post on Media Diversified echoes some recent discussion about the enduring perception that museums are not meant for people of color, who have been historically unwelcome and underrepresented in their collections.

I remember my experience attending museums as black child growing up in post-de-Segregation era Washington, DC differently. Maybe it was a Chocolate City thang, maybe it was that both my parents had advanced degrees, maybe it was that museums were being pressured to abandon exclusionary practices both official and de facto that a decade earlier would have certainly made the climate different, but as a frequent museum-goer I felt that those spaces belonged to me. Moreover, I felt just at home at the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery as I did at the National Museum of African Art (in its previous incarnation at the Frederick Douglass House before its move to the Mall).

Fortunately, I only learned later that most people like me perceived museums as antithetical to them and it is a shame that this belief persists. Was my sense of entitlement to the works of art that I saw regardless of whether they were by El Greco, an Aztec, a French Impressionist, an African, or by Bearden, due to whatever unique thing that prompted me to become an art historian or was it because an open door policy works?

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Author: Camara Dia Holloway

I am an art historian specializing in early twentieth century American art with particular focus on the history of photography, race and representation, and transatlantic modernist networks. I earned my PhD at Yale University in the History of Art Department.
Besides my leadership role as the Founding Co-Director of the Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH), I am recognized for my expertise on African American Art, particularly African American Photography, and as a seasoned consultant for exhibitions, museum collections, and symposia/lectures planning.
View all posts by Camara Dia Holloway